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Bugs (Data Age)


DoctorSpuds

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Even though I may have softened somewhat on Data Age as time has gone by it doesn’t mean I won’t still ridicule them for producing some awful titles, the three games that I would classify as ‘as bad as people say they are’ are as follows: Airlock, Warplock, and Bugs. Now, Bugs and I have a bit of a history together, in that it was the first Paddle game I bought, long before I actually had a set of Paddle controllers, so I got to look at it on my shelf for oh so long, and when I finally got my first- and only- set of Paddles, I felt lied to. I only had the cartridge, and would you just look at the art on it, it looks amazing, look at all the text at the bottom of the picture; I thought this would be Robot Tank meets Centipede, but boy was I in for a shock.

 

Upon starting the game, you are shown a flat playing field with three long creatures stretching up beyond the horizon line, the immediate issue is that one of those creatures isn’t a bug it’s a lizard, immediately rendering the title of the game moot, the other creature is a weird worm/chain hybrid that may or may not actually be a bug, I just don’t know. When you press the button on the Paddle you are shown a fairly cool ‘space tunnel’ full of bright colors and then you are smacked in the face with displeasure, remember when my hopes and dreams for this game were destroyed, well it happened right at this moment. All the bugs do is rise slowly, or quickly, from beyond the horizon line, and that’s all they do. The only other graphical Item I haven’t mentioned is the Phalanx, but I’ll get to that bastard in the gameplay segment.

 

This game has very few sounds to speak of, a very minimalist game to be sure when it’s lacking both graphics and sound (perhaps gameplay as well). When you start the game in the ‘space tunnel’ you’ll hear a somewhat labored engine noise as if you are traveling at great speeds (which you’re not). When the game starts you’ll hear a high pitched *ting* and then you will hear the ‘creepy crawly’ noise, it’s simply two notes going back and forth slowly rising in pitch, all you’ll hear after that are various beeps for firing your gun and getting destroyed. There is almost nothing meaningful to this game it’s just so shallow.

 

Speaking of shallow, that’s the exact word I’d use to describe the gameplay. All you do is move your little cross shaped crosshair back and forth under the bugs and shoot them before they reach the top of the screen, the developers realized that the game would be too easy if they just left it like that though so they introduces the Phalanx, i.e. the thing you will lose all your lives to. When the Phalanx is appearing it will be indestructible, you can’t hurt it and it can’t hurt you, when it starts to move however… well you better not be on its right otherwise you’re a goner. How good are you at predictive positioning because you’d better hope that bastard intersects with one of your shots because if it touches your crosshair you’re losing a life, and since your shots will come from either the left or the right bottom corners of the screen do you’d better hope the shot is coming from the corner you want otherwise the shot will take too long to get to the Phalanx and is one life gone.

 

This game is light on the graphics, light on the sounds, and light on the gameplay. You’ll do the same thing over and over while listening to the same thing over and over while looking at the same thing over and over. The game is either too easy or too challenging with nothing in between, the bugs have either no chance or you have no chance, the game simply feels unfinished and rushed. It’s games like this that collapsed the videogame market in ’83 and ’84 not Pac-Man or E.T.. Honestly the box art is the best thing about this game, and you know what that means, its Collector’s Zone for this bad boy, I’m not even going to tell you Ebay prices since if you ask me nobody should own this game.

 

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Yep, this one is garbage. Thanks for giving it a full write up anyway!

 

Aww c'mon, no critiques? No inspirational life advice? No quotes? I spent a whole ten minutes writing this review and I demand viewer participation ;)

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No inspirational life advice? No quotes?

 

How about... "Life's too short to play Data Age, Froggo, or Mythicon games." Had someone gave me that advice when I was younger, and I had invested the saved money and time wisely, who knows how things might have been different? :-)

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How about... "Life's too short to play Data Age, Froggo, or Mythicon games." Had someone gave me that advice when I was younger, and I had invested the saved money and time wisely, who knows how things might have been different? :-)

 

You're too late for that one mate.

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I had my heart broken by this game. Garage sales, I was convinced, since my mom dragged me to them most good weather Saturdays, were really a video game bargin store in disguise. Sometimes that was true, but sometimes... One could get their hopes up based on cart art and expect to be playing something wonderful for the rest of the afternoon. Here's a good example of that. Except it was somehow almost criminally terrible. Good thing I once bought HERO under the same conditions or I'd have no hope in humanity.

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